


Redamancy

by fiendfall



Series: a bird in the hand [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Language, Non-Explicit Sex, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 07:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6070864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiendfall/pseuds/fiendfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Redamancy: n., the act of loving one who loves you, a love returned in full</p><p>A study of the Tabris/Zevran romance in a few moments.</p><p>(Started out as a 5+1 but rapidly got away from me.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redamancy

At first, it works because it’s easy.

And right now it’s the only thing that _is_ , from the bloody Blight to the home she left behind to everyone fucking counting on her, all the _fucking time_. It’s exhausting, and ridiculous, is what it is – she knows for a fact Alistair has been a Warden much longer than she has, Alistair can hold a conversation with a human without wanting to stab them in the eye, Alistair actually wants to help when people tell them ‘sorry, no, can’t help you, I have my own problems’. As if Siegfried _wanted_ to be here, talking to shitty people about their own shitty lives, as if there wasn’t a _fucking Blight going on_.

Andraste, she’s tired of this shite.

So there’s all that bollocks happening, and yeah, if she had a choice she’d probably have legged it right after Ostagar went down. But she’s a Warden now, for better or worse, and Leliana’s speeches about faith and destiny, and all Wynne’s talk of duty and responsibility… Well. She’s still here, isn’t she?

And then there’s Zevran, who’s a bloody idiot. And his constant flirtng and light-hearted chatter are so out of place here, where everyone else she knows is looking to her to make some big fucking life-changing decision and talking to her about the Maker and whatever else. It’s just a relief, alright? To have someone who’d rather try and get in her pants than talk about anything deep.

And yeah, he’s an assassin sent to kill her, and yeah, she’d be a right idiot to trust him, but at least he’s not obsessed with saving the entire fucking world. Talking to him almost seems _normal_ , like she’s back at home and trying to chat up Linette, or hurriedly making out with Adam behind his father’s house. They keep it light and easy, and they’re both glad for the companionship, she thinks. She knows for a fact they both like the scandalised look on Alistair’s face when she starts flirting back.

And then, one night, Leliana draws Siegfried aside and starts talking about feelings and friendship and maybe even _love_ , and this was not how she expected this conversation to go. So she says something trite about being friends and leaves as soon as she can.

It’s not a lie, Leliana’s possibly the person she trusts the most – Alistair is well-meaning but bumbling, and though she respects Wynne more than anyone else she also knows the woman would happily see her die to end the Blight, and that’s just not a price she’s willing to pay. She gets along well enough with the others, though Morrigan is even pricklier than she is, and Sten is still something of a mystery.

But even Leliana’s religous fervour doesn’t grate on Siegfried’s nerves the way she might have thought; it’s actually almost comforting, in a way. There’s a strength to Leliana that she admires. Envies, even, if she’s being truthful. Siegfried’s never been anything but scrappy in her life, but Leliana has meaning and purpose. She’d like to have that, that calm assurance.

That said, Leliana’s, what, nineteen? And she’s simultaneously so mature and so young, so painfully innocent, almost. And Siegfried know she’s done some stuff, seen some shit, but still. She feels a hundred years older. You don’t go through a wedding like hers and not come out…

Well, anyway.

She returns to the campfire, bids the others goodnight as they turn in. They don’t have enough tents for everyone, so they have to bunk up (though Morrigan flatly refused); Siegfried shares with Leliana, so she tells her she’ll turn in later, she wants to stay on watch a little. She’s been having nightmares – fucking Warden nightmares, not even her own, the dreams of some darkspawn. And she doesn’t want to be paranoid, but still. She also doesn’t want to be dead.

Zevran didn’t want to share a tent either; Alistair had muttered it was probably because it’d make it easier for him to kill Siegfried in her sleep, Zevran had shot back that he was just tired of Alistair kicking him. Siegfried had just found it funny. If Zevran was going to kill her, he’d just fucking kill her. Where he slept wasn’t going to make any difference.

(She could also have pointed out, in her more bitter moments, that any one of them could kill her; Leliana used to be a bard, Wynne could become an abomination, Sten murdered an entire family over a sword, Morrigan’s mother was the witch of the wilds… And yet it was the _elf_ Alistair suspected. But she knew that wouldn’t have been fair.)

So anyway. There she is, sitting up at the campfire. And there _he_ is, lounging on his bedroll a few feet away, the furs draped over him not quite hiding the fact that he’s naked. And really quite attractive. And when he catches her looking, he just grins slowly.

‘See anything you like?’ he asks, as if she hasn’t been staring at his arse every day since they met.

Like everything else with him, the sex is easy. He’s gentle and considerate, which is more than can be said for a lot of the fumbled lays she’s had over the years. She’s used to a quick fuck somewhere hidden, not something slow and deliberate like this. And Maker, Zevran’s good.

They end up lying side-by-side, the furs flung aside, their skin cooling against the night air. She hasn’t been this comfortable in years. And then he twists onto his side to look at her, his expression smug. She rolls her eyes and gets up, stepping over him to retrieve her smallclothes.

‘Thanks.’

He grins as she retreats to her tent. ‘Thank _you_ , Warden.’

All in all, a satisfying evening.

* * *

It becomes a regular thing. Regular enough that the others start making comments. Zevran deflects with sexual humour. Siegfried deflects with death-glares.

It works. It’s fun. It’s pretty much the only thing she doesn’t have to think about, to second-guess, to wonder about. She’s had meaningless sex before, she’s good at it. And Zevran isn’t any more likely to fall in love with her than she is with him. They’re on the same page. It’s safe.

The weather is still warm, summer not yet quite turned to autumn, and if there’s an upside to being a Grey Warden in the middle of a Blight and also a fugitive from Loghain’s men, it’s the fact that Siegfried’s list of places she has had sex is really quite impressive now.

They make the most of the balmy nights, Siegfried even stripping down to nothing, pressed together sticky and hot. She attempts to keep it down, if only for Wynne’s sake – although she suspects Zevran of deliberately trying to make her moan, a suspicion that is confirmed when he finally succeeds and grins at her wickedly. It feels strange that everyone knows about them, can judge them: she’s used to whispering her secrets to Shianni in the dead of night and muffling their giggles so as not to wake her father. But if she’s the Warden who everyone expects to save the bloody world, then they can listen to her have sex every once in a while.

Unfortunately, it’s not just noises the others have to put up with. One night Alistair blearily fumbles his way out of his tent to relieve himself and gets an eyefull, and because he’s practically a 12-year-old boy he shrieks and turns beet red like he just found his parents in bed together. He stumbles over his apologies, his words jumbled like his tongue is too big for his mouth, and Siegfried is just thinking how mortifying this will be tomorrow when Alistair is unable to look her in the eye when Zevran intervenes.

He stands, stark naked, hand on hip and eyebrows raised suggestively. ‘Alistair, my dear friend, you are most welcome to join us.’

Alistair flees the scene, and Siegfried once again finds herself muffling her giggles.

Zevran turns to her in mock distress. ‘I’ve never seen a man so afraid of a good time.’

For the rest of the evening, Siegfried keeps interrupting them with giggling fits as she remembers Alistair’s face. It doesn’t help when Zevran starts doing impressions, which are uniformly terrible but she’s too far gone to care.

The next day, she would be more embarrassed except Zevran keeps catching her eye and wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, and she finds it’s her struggling to keep a straight face around Alistair, rather than the other way around.

* * *

They’re not elves, and this is not the alienage. That’s what she keeps reminding herself. _This is not your home, these are not your family_. But it’s still hard to see people treated like this. And really, what’s the difference between her home and Dust Town? What, the dwarves didn’t have enough fucking outsiders to be racist to, they had to start being shitty to their own people?

She spends the whole day dangerously angry, even snaps at Leliana when she starts talking about nugs – who fucking cares, can she not see what’s going on around her? Is she so caught up with the Maker that she’s as blind as He is? And then Alistair looks nervous, like he’s going to get jumped, like someone will appear out the shadows and stab him, as if Dust Town is more dangerous than fighting _actual fucking darkspawn_. Just because these people are poor and angry. He has no idea.

Maker, everything reminds her of home, except now _she’s_ like the shem that’s invaded their territory. People won’t look her in the eye, watch her warily from doorways. She never thought some shitty corner of a dwarven city would make her so homesick.

And she _is_. Homesick, that is. That evening, when they make it back to their camp out in the pass, with their nice tents, and she takes off her nice armour and wraps herself in nice blankets against the cold, she feels sick with guilt. Here she is, in a foreign city, hundreds of miles from home – her family, her friends, _Shianni_ – and she’s helping those she can, of course she is, apparently that’s what she fucking _does_ , but it’s all wrong. How is it that she can help complete strangers, but not those important to her? That she runs around protecting racists and lords and shems, but she couldn’t even protect Shianni? She can’t even go home, can’t see her, can’t kill anyone else who tries to lay a hand on her. She _can’t_.

This is it, she realises. This is her fucking _life_ now. She will be a Grey Warden even after the Blight is ended. She can never go home. It will always be like this.

She wants to kill something. She’s so full of rage it’s eating her up inside, scalding her lungs, a dragon roaring to be let free. If this was a battle she could slake her bloodlust, fight until she’s too exhausted to move anymore, and then maybe she would die, and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Or maybe she’d just keep fighting, forever, carve a bloody gash through Ferelden right to Denerim, and then she’d kill everyone who ever called her knife-ear, and maybe _then_ she would die, and she would know it was worth it. Except maybe Shianni would be there, and she didn’t deserve any more death, any more pain.

There is nothing she can do. It’s like Wynne has been telling her, she needs to accept that this is her fate. Except _fuck that_. She deserves _better_ , Shianni deserves _better_ than for her to die in a ditch because she couldn’t keep fighting, because of some shitty notion of duty or destiny. Fuck that.

Everyone else is asleep again when she finds Zevran, sitting a little way from the campfire. He looks up when she approaches, and she must look fierce because he falters.

‘Kiss me,’ she says, and her voice burns her throat.

She’s angry tonight, stormy, drags her teeth over his lip, digs her nails into his back, and he meets her halfway. They’re rougher, harsher, _sharper_ , and when they’re done, she feels brittle, like she might crumble with a single touch.

She asks stares at the stars and asks: ‘Have you ever killed someone – just because you wanted to?’

He doesn’t look at her.

She lies in the grass until she’s numb.

* * *

They are ambushed by bandits on their way south, and Siegfried takes a sword to the stomach, goes down heavily. Watches the fight continue sideways. She should get up – where are her blades? Her clothes are sticky with blood, red against the road. Her vision dims.

When she wakes, she is in her tent, and her wound is healed. Her gut still aches, but there are perks to having a healing mage among your companions. Though staying in bed indefinitely is not one of them.

She finds her shirt, pulls it on gingerly. Wynne left her leggings on, at least. Standing up is painful, but if she grits her teeth she can get through it. She should be used to pain by now. Maybe if Zevran ever shares his super secret assassin skills, one of them will include a higher pain threshold.

The others are sitting around the campfire, talking in low tones. She can feel how tense they are even from the threshold of her tent. Aww. They were worried.

‘Siegfried!’ Alistair bounds to her side, stands awkardly like he wants to help her walk but realises doing so would get him stabbed. She waves away Leliana as well – what is she, an invalid? – and makes her way over to join the others. She thanks Wynne, ignores Oghren when he drunkenly asks how many ogres they had been fighting at the time, returns Sten’s quiet nod, silently agrees with Morrigan when she tells Alistair he’s a fool for hovering around her like she’ll break.

Zevran watches her from across the campfire. Oh, he jokes with the others well enough. But his eyes never stray from her for long.

That night, Siegfried asks Leliana if she would mind sharing with Wynne instead of her.

They have to be careful; Siegfried is still feeling more bruised than she would like to admit, but Zevran seems to understand that intuitively. They undress slowly, taking their time now they are in private, hands brushing skin. He kisses her neck and she shivers, lays back against her bedroll. He licks her open, and she forgets everything except this moment.

‘Would you return to the Crows, if I died?’ she asks, lying in his arms when they are both sated.

‘You will not die,’ he says, surprisingly serious. She can feel his voice reverberating in his chest beneath her back.

She twists to look up at his face. ‘Were you worried about me?’

He presses a soft kiss to her brow. ‘You will not die.’

* * *

He recites naughty Antivan poetry to her, and the next time she’s in a market, Siegfried finds a book of the stuff. She takes to memorising lines and saying them during sex to make him laugh.

It works.

* * *

The Dalish do not welcome her, despite their shared blood, but although she is disappointed she cannot find it in herself to fault them. She knows too well what it is like to distrust strangers as an act of self-preservation.

And yet she cannot help her curiosity as she looks around their camp, sees the way her people live without the influence of humans, without their oppression. Zevran tells her his mother was Dalish, and she wonders what it would be like to grow up in a place like this. She’s not naïve enough to believe it would be easy, but surely it would be better? Surely Shianni and her father would be safer here? The sense of community is no less strong at home, but here they would have the power to protect each other. She wouldn’t have had to leave after she killed Vaughan, the clan could simply have moved on.

But there would be other struggles. She knows enough to realise that life isn’t easy for elves wherever they are.

So is it selfish for her to be happy where she is right now?

* * *

Zevran finally teaches her the tricks of his trade, how to wound deeper, how to leave a target bleeding, how to dart from the shadows and back again. They spend hour upon hour sparring, and in real battle Zevran will call out encouragement or admonishment even as they fight for their lives. He is as good a teacher as he is a lover: considerate, flirty, and irreverent in all things. In return, she passes on what knowledge her mother gave her, though in truth there is little she can teach him.

Together the two techniques are deadly. But not as deadly as the elves who wield them.

* * *

She thought she’d be used to killing by now.

That evening, she’s despondent, quiet. Everyone leaves her alone. They all heard Alistair shouting earlier. They all knew what it was about. They’ve never seen her look so defeated.

Usually, she fights back. They’re used to that: a Siegfried who kicks and spits and _fights_. Not this. Never this.

Zevran seeks her out, sits a little way off to her side, and the others must take this as a cue to leave because they disperse quietly.

He doesn’t say anything. She’s grateful for that, at least. She wants neither anger nor platitudes.

Her heart hurts.

‘Did I do the right thing?’ she asks, and hates how her voice wavers. ‘How can I even ask that? How can- how can killing a fucking _child_ ever be the right thing?’

If she’d just gone to the Circle, maybe there would have been someone who could help. Or if she’d let Jowan do his ritual – Isolde had been willing, if she’d just-

Connor was just a boy who had wanted to protect his father. Could she really fault him that?

She’s glad it’s Zevran here with her. She doesn’t want anything the others might say.

He tells her a story, softly at first. The story of the only murder he regrets.

They’re both quiet.

It doesn’t make her feel better about what she did. It just means they both feel shitty.

But at least she knows he understands.

* * *

She sees Shianni in the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

It has been so long, she has been off ‘adventuring’; it was easy to forget the plight of those she left behind. She feels heavy with guilt, even as she ascends the steps to the urn.

Is this truly a holy place? She can’t help but wonder. There is certainly – something, here. A presence. A weight to the air, like an indrawn breath.

Zevran has told her he believes in the Maker, asks forgiveness for his sins. She has not prayed since she was a child, since her mother died and the Maker did nothing, turned His face from her pleas, and she looked around the world and realised she was alone. No one was coming to save her. She would have to do this herself.

Andraste was a sacrifice, one the Maker demanded. Will He also demand _her_ death?

* * *

They are a whirlwind of vengeance in Denerim, killing slavers, killing Howe. They work as a single unit, side-by-side, back-to-back, flashing daggers and teeth.

She realises abruptly that she can’t trust everyone like she trusts him when Alistair leaves. Alistair, who had fought by her side since the very beginning.

As much as she didn’t ever want to be a Warden, it gave her this. It gave her freedom, it gave her some respect, it gave her the power to protect the alienage from Howe.

It gave her Zevran.

The Rite of Conscription exists purely for this reason, she sees that now. It was never a punishment, but nor was it a way for her to escape justice. It was a second chance. And she hates Loghain, she hates that he allowed Howe to do what he did, she hates that he sent assassins after her (even if that did turn out in her favour, and definitely worked well for her sex life). She hates that he allowed his paranoia to get the better of him.

But she also remembers the stories in the alienage of how he drove out Orlesian forces at the side of King Maric, she remembers the heroicism, the romanticism; she also remembers Cailan’s foolishness, and whatever else Loghain’s abandonment of Ostagar may have been, it was a decision that saved lives. She realises that.

She’s too involved to be impartial. She’s heard Anora speak both bad and good of her father; she’s _seen_ both bad and good.

So she gives him a second chance, and in return Alistair throws away his.

* * *

She’s angry with Alistair, more than she misses him. This was his job from the start – he was the senior Warden, he was the _son_ of the _fucking king_. She’s just some insignificant elf from Denerim. What does she know?

The least he could’ve done was stay. Was his own revenge more important than the fate of _the entire fucking country_?

She tries to think whether she would have done the same thing, if someone insisted Howe lived. But that just makes her angrier, because it’s not the same. Howe slaughtered her family and friends; but it was the darkspawn who killed Duncan, and those same darkspawn who would kill many more while Alistair wallowed in self-pity.

She’s never been one for duty, but it’s hard to shirk this kind of responsibility when so much is on the line. Apparently not that hard for Alistair, though.

She snaps at the others over supper, retreats to her room like a dog licking its wounds. When Zevran comes to her later, they just sit together on her bed, legs stretched out in front of them. They don’t talk. She feels better anyway.

* * *

They kill the last of the Crows sent after Zevran; they kill Taliesen together. Between them, they’ve killed a lot of each other’s demons.

Then he tries to give her an earring.

She panics.

* * *

Siegfried has done things like this before. She’s had crushes before – Andraste, she’s even had relationships before. She’s not some blushing Chantry sister with no idea what love is.

She just knows it’s not for her. She’s tried that. It didn’t work. She always comes to her senses a few months in and realises with growing horror just what it is that she has done – she’s tricked someone into loving her, and now they think _she_ loves _them_ , because somehow she managed to forget that she _always does this_. She always realises the things wrong with the relationship all at once, like a ton of bricks, and suddenly all she wants to do is escape, flee, get away. She can’t hold a relationship, she can’t persuade herself she’s in love for any length of time, because the spell always wears off and she’s left holding the tattered remains and trying not to break someone else’s heart.

And she’d thought she was _safe_ , she’d thought she and Zevran wanted the same things, that this was the one simple part of her life, she’d never imagined…

Fuck it all.

* * *

They stop sleeping together.

She believes it’s for the best.

* * *

Wynne finds her in the library of the Arl of Redcliffe’s estate and apologises.

‘What for?’ she can’t help but ask. They’ve had their differences in their journeys, but she counts Wynne among her closest friends, has respected her since the moment they met and she dealt more than capably with Siegfried’s barbed comments. So what… ?

‘I believe I was wrong. There seems to be something special between the two of you. His demeanour changes when he’s with you; there is a tenderness to his gaze I’d never seen till now.’

She means Zevran. Siegfried doesn’t know what do say.

Wynne’s hand moves to Siegfried’s shoulder, gentle and compassionate, her voice warm. ‘What you have may not last forever; death and duty may part you, but love’s worthiness is not diminished because of that. Instead you learn to cherish every precious moment that you spend together, knowing that it may be the last.’

After she’s gone, Siegfried ruins a book with her tears.

* * *

She learns that a Warden has to die.

Of fucking course.

Why did she ever expect anything else?

(She doesn’t want to die.)

Morrigan offers her a way out, but Siegfried has always been too proud for her own good.

Morrigan leaves.

(It’s all falling apart, and Siegfried is going to die.)

* * *

The darkspawn horde marches on Denerim. On her family, her friends, all the innocents living there.

It’s so fucking unfair, she thinks. Why did it have to be people she cares about?

She supposes it’s better than dying for strangers.

* * *

Siegfried goes to him, on the eve before the battle. They have spent a week on horseback, thundering down the Imperial Highway, and now they are camped just outside the city. They have little time; at dawn tomorrow they march on to Denerim, and by the next day it will likely all be over.

She doesn’t want to leave it like this. If she’s going to die, which is pretty fucking likely, then at least her relationship issues won’t have a chance to fuck this up.

‘Are you certain you wish to talk about this? I really do not know what to say.’

She has never seen him so uncomfortable, so uncertain.

He explains everything. And she realises her worries were so utterly insignificant, so ridiculously trivial, that she almost can’t believe it has taken her this long to work it out.

 _He is just as afraid of this as she is_.

They _were_ the same, all along; they _did_ both want the same things out of this, and then they _both_ recoiled at the feelings that were developing despite their original intentions.

He asks her for a future together, and she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

There is bravery in baring your throat. She had thought she was strong, before, by leaving before things could get complicated, leaving at the first sign of trouble rather than trying to weather the storm.

She thinks now she was just being a coward.

She loves him, in this moment she knows that. And whatever else may come, Wynne was right. That’s good enough for now.

She takes the earring.

* * *

They head into the jaws of death together, and it is exactly as she would want. They run across the city together, killing and killing and killing. And in a moment of quiet, she tells him about the Grey Wardens. About how to kill an archdemon.

She’s still so fucking angry. She still doesn’t want to die.

She doesn’t want to leave this behind. After so many years of getting shit on, of fighting with bloodied knuckes, her back against the wall, lashing out tooth and nail just to survive, trying and failing to protect those she cares about, after so many years of utter shite, she finally – finally! – has something good, has a future she can imagine actually _wanting_.

She doesn’t want this to be over yet. She doesn’t want this to be her last fight. There’s so much she wants to do. She wants to explore the world with Zevran, she wants to introduce him to her family, she wants to help him take down the Crows, she wants to make Anora protect the alienage, she wants to see Shianni get married and have children, she wants to see her father grow old and happy, she wants, she wants, she _wants_.

She’s always been selfish.

* * *

Loghain asks to take the final blow. The archdemon lies at their feet, immense, terrifying, fucking _ugly_ – and Loghain turns to her and asks to die.

This isn’t what she signed on for, ever. She’s never wanted to decide who lives, who dies. That’s not her _fucking_ responsibility. Get the fucking Maker down here, that’s _his_ fucking job.

She wants to scream.

But he’s old, he says. He’s old, he’s disgraced, he only ever wanted to protect Ferelden. He wants to do that now.

She was _so sure_ she had to die. And now it’s like she’s fallen into the Fade; she has no idea which way is up or what’s right or what to do.

Zevran brushes his fingers against her elbow. Loghain hefts his sword in his hand.

This shouldn’t be _her_ choice.

She makes it anyway.

* * *

Loghain is hailed as a hero, but Siegfried is alive. She knows which one of them drew the shorter straw. Whatever else he was, Loghain died honourably. She won’t take that from him.

* * *

She sits in the main room of her home, the home she thought she would never see again. She has money and fame enough now to move her family from the alienage, and Anora was surprised when she turned that offer down. This is her home. This is the only place she ever wanted to be, even after travelling all of the country.

Her father sits by the fire with her, companionable in their silence. She is happy just to listen, though: Zevran and Shianni are in the next room, cooking dinner, and though she cannot see them she can hear their banter as Zevran attempts to teach her cousin how to cook.

Shianni is so strong; for all that Cyrion is proud of Siegfried, she is a thousand times more proud of her cousin. Her cousin who is now Bann of the alienage. And she will be amazing.

There is a clatter from the next room, and the sound of Zevran swearing colourfully. Siegfried has to hide a smirk. She’d hoped he’d get along with Shianni (and also that he could save her attempts at cooking), and it seems to be going wonderfully so far. That being said, she has yet to drop the ‘he was sent to murder me’ bomb, which probably won’t go down all that well. On second thoughts, maybe she should keep that one to herself.

When the others appear triumphantly from the next room, they carry a steaming bowl of stew between them – stew which Shianni proudly announces is a traditional Antivan recipe. Zevran later tells her that was just a lie which he made up to make it sound like the meal deliberately ended up the way it did. Siegfried just kisses him and tells him he’s an idiot, to which he makes an indignant noise.

Dinner is a roaring success, and her father even warms up to Zevran as the evening progresses. Shianni gets along with him perfectly, Zevran manages to keep the innuendo and flirting to a minimum (she’d warned him off it in case it made Shianni uncomfortable, and he’d been so understanding it made her chest hurt), and the stew is actually delicious. Cyrion makes a dry comment about her having to travel half of Thedas to find a husband and she almost chokes on her chicken, but Zevran just throws his head back and laughs in that bright, full-bodied way of his.

When all the dishes have been washed, they say their goodbyes. Cyrion offers her her old bed, wonders why she’s not staying with them, but Shianni just gives them a grin and tells them to ‘have fun’ and ‘stay safe’.

They walk through the streets of Denerim to the Pearl, remarkably unscathed in the darkspawn attack and doing business as usual. They just take a room, and have the laziest, loudest sex they’ve ever been allowed – on a bed, with none of their companions just on the other side of a tent wall. Zevran kisses his way up her body, she traces his tattoos as if she couldn’t draw them in her sleep.

They fall asleep curled together. She is happy, and she thinks he is too. And that’s all she can ask.


End file.
